


A Blackhole Retrospective on One Raphaella la Cognizi's Friends

by eminorseven



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Death To The Mechanisms, Gen, Kinda Way, because its the mechs!, but its RAPHAELLA FLAVORED, characters to be added!, in a death to the mechanisms, its major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26514808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eminorseven/pseuds/eminorseven
Summary: Raphaella la Cognizi is dying. Her friends have gone, and she is alone.So she makes her way into the heart of a dying star, for one last experiment.It goes about as well as you expect.
Relationships: vaguely raphivy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. I The End, Which, Is Never Really the End.

**Author's Note:**

> Raphaella la Cognizi was alone on the bridge of the starship once known as the Aurora. 
> 
> It was rapidly heading towards the center of a blackhole. She pushes the accelerant a little further, all the way to its limit, and the ship shudders forward. Raphaella pats the screen comfortingly. They are both on their last legs.
> 
> (TW: unreality, major character death,

Raphaella la Cognizi was alone on the bridge of the starship once known as the Aurora. 

It was rapidly heading towards the center of a blackhole. She pushes the accelerant a little further, all the way to its limit, and the ship shudders forward. Raphaella pats the screen comfortingly. They are both on their last legs.

She chuckles to herself, darkly. If only she had pestered Brian a little more, she might know more than the basics of piloting. Then this might actually be easier. Or maybe even Nastya- 

She shuts down the thought. 

None of that. The void demanded that she be at her most cold and calculating, a scientist pushing herself to the extremes, for there is so much to know. And she was going to find out exactly how far she was willing to go.

If this was a movie, she’d close her eyes. But it isn't. She is a scientist first and foremost, and she keeps them wide open, as the ship is swallowed into the mouth of the blackhole.

And everything goes dark.

At least, for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up one day and messaged my twin about this idea because I had Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on my brain and thought wow, huh, why don't I process the deathsong via reverse chronology. It also happened to be strong Raphaella loving hours that day.
> 
> So this fic was born!
> 
> MULTICHAPTER FIC! FOR ONCE!
> 
> Hopefully I finish it. Please let me know if you're interested in any way, I've written out, say, 60% of the rest but I gotta kick my butt into working on it, haha. I've posted this prologue and the first chapter, one of nine (you may see where I am going with this) and we'll see if I can do a weekly update. Or bi-weekly, who knows.
> 
> Next up: II The Librarian


	2. II The Librarian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one about the archivist.

A strong gust of wind blows back her hair out of its bun and Raphaella instinctively closes her eyes. 

“Urgh, that’s rather unpleasant.”

When she forces her eyes to open again, she is met with a dazzling display of rainbow. She looks around, and time and space warp around her form, the deck of the ship and the control panels stretching at a honey-like viscosity.

“Time shenanigans, huh? This is really inconvenient! Thanks universe! For keeping me around a little longer, when I expected it to be  _ much  _ quicker!” Raphaella yells out into the void. Brilliant flashing lights stretch across the bridge. It reminds her of the Bifrost, but subdued. It’s multicolored in a beautiful way. Not like the Bifrost's terrifying auroras. The death of one small star, instead of a whole galaxy.

Her body is shot back, wings fluttering out in panic, and she hits the far wall.

“Ooh, ouchies. That hurt.”

Raphaella winces. The mechanisms in this pair were breaking. She instinctively thought that she should replace them when… right. Dying. That thing. She pats herself down, checking for any broken bones. No use in getting injured while she’s gathering data. Raphaella surveys the scene. Huh. Hold on. This wasn’t where she was before.

And then it hits.

“Oh. Oh, that’s unfair! That’s really unfair, universe! I thought we were doing me a favor!”

The scene before her dissolved into the last thing she wanted to see right before she might die horribly in the middle of this blackhole. 

The last time she saw Ivy Alexandria.

* * *

Ivy loved it when she called her a librarian. It was different from calling her the ship’s archivist, which was something she eventually grew into, but it was never her true passion to begin with. Raphaella’s first meeting with her consisted of not really understanding what the point of an archivist was, and then mistakenly calling her a librarian because that’s what she thought Ivy was. Ivy looked stunned for a moment, her stone cold features freezing up, before melting into a lovely smile that made Raphaella go starstruck. “No one’s called me a librarian in so long. It’s rather nice.” Raphaella didn’t have a good, witty response to that. She was a little distracted.

They got along rather nicely, with Ivy (along with Tim and Ashes, and then Nastya, after some coaxing) being one of the few that accommodated the new arrivals well, and being trapped in prison for several decades together with Marius had solidly improved their stance on each other in comparison to everyone else. They were the prison trio! Good memories there. Good cuddles, too.

So when Ivy decided to retire, it came as a bit of a shock. 

_ Raphaella in the present snorts. That was a complete and utter understatement. _

She had brought up the idea during dinner, one of the last times that all nine of them were together. Yes, nine, she remembers, this was before Nastya decided to go out. 

The space around her shifts to that memory, where they were all gathered together. It wasn’t even a particularly notable memory. Goes to show that you never really know how life is going to shoot you in the face.

Brian had made dinner and after the usual affair of squabbles over who gets what and seating arrangements, it ended with Tim permanently losing his chair for a month since they weren’t due to land for a good while, she, Ashes and Nastya were reconstituting metals for ship repairs. It was replaced by a stool. Raphaella had offered to make him a new one but he adamantly refused, knowing that she would probably have to make do with what they had on board. Which happened to be octokittens. Raphaella giggles to herself at that thought. She wasn’t really going to do anything to them, aside from using their goo for some kind of adhesive maybe, but, honestly, it was just going to be bribing Nastya to give up something from her metal scrap stash.

During the end of a particularly enthusiastic food fight, Ivy had an announcement. That she was thinking of retiring. She had to say it twice because no one stopped to listen the first time around, Raphaella herself was guilty of that. She was holding a sausage to whack the Toy Soldier in the face with, when everyone paused. 

“I am thinking of retiring.” The words echoed in her mind then, and they continued to echo now.

“But, not, now  _ now _ right?” It slipped out of Raphaella’s mouth. Ivy had smiled at that, and shook her head. “No. Not now. But sometime.”

Raphaella remembers brightening at that. “Great! Now watch me-!” And the memory dissolved away. She threw the sausage at the Toy Soldier and it bounced off so rapidly that it flew back and hit her in the face. That certainly taught her not to throw what was basically rubber at wood surfaces.

_ “Oh, so we’re doing metaphysical changes based on whatever I think of now? Way to teach me a lesson!” Raphaella yells out, again, into the void. No one answers.  _

_ That’s what she thought. _

And so she put that memory far away, into the dark recesses of her mind where she could not find it, was cluttered with a compendium of facts about magnets and all sorts of things that she knew.

So when the time finally came, she had nearly forgotten about it. Ivy made the rounds to say goodbye to everyone. Raphaella was preoccupied by something she doesn’t even really remember now. She had assumed that Ivy was just going off the ship for a while or decided to go AWOL again, and continued about her experiments (that time it was a new plastic compound that she was making, and now that she thinks about it was probably to get Tim a new chair since it hadn’t been replaced for some time) when Marius had burst through the door. 

“Ivy’s leaving.”

Raphaella had dropped the canister that she had been working on for so long and it spilled pathetically all over the floor. Marius looked at her, worried, and Raphaella shook her head to clear it. It didn’t work. It just seemed to stir up the sediment and clouded the waters of her mind even more.

When they arrived at the pod, Raphaella saw Ivy’s ship, piled with all sorts of books and saw that it was charted towards a library planet that Ivy had told them about at some point. She couldn’t remember it was too cloudy. She then noticed that Marius’ eyes were rimmed red, like he’d been crying for a while now and had been rubbing his eyes, and he didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

All three of them hugged. Ivy gave them a kiss on the cheek each, and left their embrace for the final time, clambering onto the pod. Time caught up to Raphaella, and the scene around vividly painted the pod shooting out at a rapid pace. 

Raphaella had felt her shoulder grow wet. She felt Marius clutch onto her and at this point he’s bawling his eyes out but she stands strong. She wasn’t going to let Ivy’s goodbye end with both of them crying, Ivy didn’t deserve to feel that kind of guilt. She was retiring. This was her choice and she was cognizant of that.

_ Ivy would have appreciated that pun. Or not. She can’t really remember all too well. _

In the distance, Ivy took one last look back before she was completely out of sight and they locked eyes. She smiles at Raphaella, and waves forlornly. She was too far away for Raphaella to see anything else properly, and quickly became just another speck in the distance. This was all it took for Raphaella to break. Her already watery eyes filled with tears and they spilled over, onto Marius’ head. He looked up at her, but she refused to acknowledge anything, only holding him in a tighter embrace. 

She held her head up high.

They were the only two left.

Raphaella found her instruments a couple weeks later, and nearly burned the whole place down. She suddenly understood the urge, and explained this to Ashes, who frowned at her. “I don’t think it’ll be cathartic in the way that you think, Raph.” They tried to place a hand on her shoulder but she jerked away, a whole chemical mixture of anger, fear and despair bubbled up within her. This was not what she wanted to hear. Ashes hesitated, and then patted her gently, and ushered her out of the storage room. 

She barely made it halfway down the corridor when she had collapsed into a sobbing mess, too quiet for anyone but Marius to hear, who emerged from his quarters with tear streaked cheeks, and nudged her with his boot.

“Mind if I join you?”

Raphaella didn’t respond. 

_ She regretted that a little bit now, but he understood her more than anyone else on the ship now, especially since Ivy wasn’t… she didn’t finish the thought.  _

Marius leaned against her, then let his head fall against hers gently. The prison trio huddle wasn’t complete without Ivy, but they managed. He extended his arm around her shoulder and she leant into his touch. They sat there for who knows how long. The Aurora had, as she later found out, shuffled some rooms around so that they would be alone for as long as possible.

_ Raphaella wipes tears she didn’t know were on her face with her arm. They were rapidly rolling down her cheeks and wetting her blouse. She missed Ivy fiercely, but she knew that Ivy must be out there somewhere, for it was a retirement. It wasn’t like everyone else's. Not yet, at least. And she guessed that she would never know. While she knew the destination of Ivy’s retirement, she never sought it out, respecting her final wishes. She forces a smile, Ivy loved her smiles, Ivy loved her and picked herself back up. The trek back to the control panel took an abnormal amount of time, she notes down her tablet, calculating that it took about 5.63 times longer than it usually would have, and set to work. Raphaella didn’t know if that was accurate. She wasn’t the one who was good at math. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And hopefully with that two part update, I will be motivated to finish writing the rest. Everyone else's bits are a little shorter and I either wanna match it up
> 
> I laid it on real thick with the sadness, oops. I just really think the Prison Mechs would have been wonderful friends and I'd like to think that they didn't exactly process their absences very well. On one hand, Raphaella respects Ivy and wants her to be very happy but on the other hand, she desperately wants her back. Ah.
> 
> Next up: III The Captain


	3. III The Captain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one about the first mate. 
> 
> Wait a moment.

Once Raphaella was back at the control panel it took more than a little while to figure out what to do next. She presses some buttons at random, finding that at least half of them were unresponsive. 

Or, she didn’t really pay attention to what Brian was telling her.

It was probably that one.

She sniffs pointedly at no one in particular. In her defence, she was enjoying his company much more than actually learning anything, which was saying something, considering the whole scientist thing! It was like scientist bonding! Fellow science people! Not that Brian talked about that much. Raphaella places her hand down on the screens, and whispers a quiet apology to him. As she does, the rainbow scene around her shifts again. The familiar visage of what the Aurora used to look like takes up her surroundings. Raphaella squints at it. This was probably that unused room that everyone lounged around in despite having a bigger, more furnished common room. This time though, it was only populated by 

Hold on a moment. 

The bean bags were surprisingly intact, the sign that was posted up by the Toy Soldier with regards to chicken eggs wasn’t there, there weren’t any wires sticking out from that panel- _oh._

This must have been early days. Very, very early days.

And judging by how Marius’ body was heroically slumped over hers (the fool, he was always trying to protect her because he would forget that she too couldn't die), the bullet holes in the wall from where the shooter missed several times and the location- this was Jonny’s work. She muses to herself that perhaps if science wasn’t her biggest career inclination, some kind of investigator would’ve been fun. Oh well. Not that it matters now.

Look how shiny their mechanisms looked!

* * *

When she and Marius first arrived on board it took decades for Jonny to warm up to them. It almost became a routine to be shot at if they happened to cross paths with him, usually resulting in one or two deaths of them or any surrounding party. At some point, they decided that it would be easier knocking him out than dying themselves. Being rather unused to the whole concept to begin with, and devised all sorts of contingency plans.

_Raphaella smiles at that. They even came up with cool code names for all of them!_ Space Shuttles _,_ P op Goes the First Mate _and_ Call Nastya _were particular favorites._

_She misses Marius._

Eventually, Jonny just glared at them from the shadows instead of drawing his gun. 

Well, that was a lie, he still had his gun up, but only trained it at their sweating backs as they scampered off. Both had resigned themselves to dying every time they would run across him. Marius had just shrugged at her after one rather panicked escape, and said that there was no way he was going to keep shooting at them _forever_. He was bound to stop at some point. Raphaella hadn’t been convinced, and told him that this was only one instance and therefore was not statistically significant enough yet. 

_Ivy would know. Raphaella would've been distracted if not for the scene changing perspective to a bird's eye view from the vents. She leans down to take a look at her body from that angle. "Is that really what I look like when I am shot in the head, that's terrible! I should've at least brushed my hair-_ oh! _" She startles, noticing a dream wormhole spacetime fuckery memory version of Jonny, peering down at the bodies as well. He has a concerned expression on his face, and he checks his pocketwatch several times._

_She gasps. "Bastard! You had the audacity to shoot us and then worriedly check up on us later?"_

_He doesn't reply._

_Raphaella tries her best to put on a disappointed frown but she giggles instead. "Oh, Jonny."_

But then Jonny kept it up. Not doing anything to them. Eventually (and oh, Raphaella considers this, it did take quite a while, relative to normal human lifespans) he wouldn’t even really acknowledge them in the same way he ignored everyone else unless he had something he wanted from them, and then they could actually hold a conversation. By conversation she meant, a constant storm of hurling insults and teasing each other, and by that she meant that it was completely one sided on her part.

Raphaella soon came to love his presence, his fiery temper that was always so easy to set off (and therefore, so much fun to cause! It’s the law of transitive property, she didn’t make the rules) and his constant wiggling, unable to stay in one spot, be quiet without humming some song or outright belt in the hallways at unholy hours in the morning. 

_The scene melts and transitions to another, to a time when she was concentrating on making a massive superconductor. The dry ice had been knocked everywhere, which was probably rather unsafe but more importantly, memory Raphaella was distractedly listening to Jonny shout outside her lab. She laughs at this as well. Wait for it, and oh, there we are, there she goes, running out to chuck a magnet at him. But like in a playful way!_

_She touches the area around her eyes. She could feel dark circles. Oops. Maybe a nap before hurling oneself into a blackhole to die would’ve been a good idea. She notes that down. She wasn’t the poster child for good sleep schedules, even with the rest of the crew around, so she was one of the few that didn’t really mind when Jonny would rattle off a rendition of whatever he had written that day._

He would never admit that he liked her and she always found it fun to tell her that she did. 

After he felt safe around her, he started to do what he always did for the other Mechanisms. He left her little presents, typically a nice patterned shirt or new tights. It was always haphazardly thrown into her quarters or draped across something in her lab, and every time she questioned him about it he would vehemently deny even stepping foot inside. She knew that was partially true, Jonny always walked past the doors with a fervent step, eyes glued to the front and never looking back, not even once. She liked to think that he made an extra effort to ask someone to go in for him, with very specific instructions as to how it was to be placed.

In return for his… perhaps generosity is a strong word, but say, generosity, he was the only one of two (she never asked Nastya either, for both of their sakes) that she never asked to join her experiments, even if he was enthusiastic about testing something (which rarely, if ever, happened and it was never on the other Mechanisms), or even go inside the lab. 

She understood that about him.

Thus, they existed within each other's periphery. They were never close in the way she was with Ivy and Marius, but close in the way that prolonged exposure via immortality tends to do for relationships. 

_Like family, Raphaella thinks._

When they sang together though, they understood each other better than anyone else. In every song where they accompanied each other, the careful steps that they took around each other outside of performing became a frenetic dance, full of energy, listening to each other and matching melody with harmony, paying attention to intervals. It was the only way that they properly communicated, and it was electric every time.

_A performance this time. And then another. And then more. A whole kaleidoscope of all the times they sang with each other, cuing the other in and smiling. This was a great way to lift her spirits after the last one. Raphaella hums to herself the song about Brian that they would do together. Doing so uplifts her spirits, distracting her from thoughts about Ivy, but it sure did feel emptier when she did it alone. She doesn’t miss the irony of that._

When it happened, she didn’t get to say goodbye to him properly. No one did, since they didn’t know when exactly it was going to happen, except for Ivy maybe. But she wasn’t on board anymore. And maybe it was better that way. Ivy’s retirement made her feel more sadness than she thought was possible.

With the loss of their first mate, the ship was quieter. More peaceful. Jonny would’ve hated it. He would’ve hated every moment on the still ship. He would have made a ruckus, shooting wildly at anyone who came in his vicinity to destroy the tranquility and start a brawl. Raphaella felt nothing but triumph for him when he didn’t return for a week. That was normal enough for most of them, but the air around them changed, and they all knew, regardless of if everyone acknowledged it properly. When you’re immortal, you tend to doubt your instincts about death. And then a month passed. Still, not too questionable. And then years upon years, and decades and centuries. 

She sang for him sometimes, when no one was around, singing only her parts. It felt strange doing it by herself, but she was content in knowing that they had known each other once upon a time. 

_He wanted to die so badly, and while she wouldn’t understand it for a long while, she does now._

What she saw in those moments were less specific memories playing out before her and more a whole experience flavored with Jonny-ness, which she supposed tasted… human. Not just in the cannibal sense (dodging all of those strange baked goods was a whole debacle she was happy to miss) but the part of him that understood that once you’ve done it all and felt it all there was really no point in sticking around. A sort of reverse memento mori. 

She was proud of him.

_Raphaella notes down on her tablet: “A good captain can cheer you up well when you're dying. In a blackhole. This may not apply to all experiences."_

**Author's Note:**

> MULTICHAPTER FIC! MULTICHAPTER FIC! MULTICHAPTER FIC!
> 
> I did this as an exercise in trying to figure out Raphaella's relationships to everyone else, which was


End file.
